My name is Troy.
I'm a Southern boy transplated to a shiny capitol city in the Midwest doing my best to keep my worldview in motion.

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

All's Fair in Unconditional Love and War

This from the Agape Press, which rarely if ever seems to publish anything having to do with unconditional love. In this article, Gary Bauer blames the press for the shortfall in military recruitment goals because it insists on reporting on our nation's losses and not as much on our troops' heroism.

Here in Indiana our media does a pretty good job of documenting our troops' generous sacrifices. I'm not sure what Bauer is missing, but if we are short on troops I do have what I believe are some helpful ideas. We have an all volunteer military, right? Able bodied people whose conscience tells them this war is right and good should be filling it up.

That last sentence was the idea--did you miss it? The best ideas are so simple, aren't they? I can't believe no one thought of it sooner.

And no offense to our recruiters, who I'm sure are beating the bushes as best they can, but I believe our soft military numbers are a result of inefficient marketing.

How about if Pat Robertson, Gary Bauer, Rick Santorum, and all of those people who think this war is what our country should be spending its young people's lives on put their money where their mouth is and start asking their eligable followers to enlist? "Agape" Press could become that heroic media outlet Bauer so desperately wishes was out there and a real helping hand to military recruiters at the same time.

I'm just warming up! How about this? James Dobson has a HUGE family audience, right? Some of those folks must have uber-righteous kids between the ages of 18 and 25. Surely college can wait if you really believe what we are doing in Iraq is God's will. I hear Jenna and Barbara are still looking for jobs. (I don't actually know how helpful they would be to the cause, but they are the president's kids and I think everybody would forgive him for pulling a few strings to get them in.)

According to Bush, he got a mandate from the voters last November that said he was right on track. Every day on the interstate I see a whole lot of folks with "W" and "Support our Troops" stickers. They should be recruiting and/or enlisting, too! I know--you can't believe you haven't thought of any of this before, can you?

And those fake town hall meetings Bush hosts are just chock full of "pre-approved" Republican Bush supporters. There should be a recruiter's desk at every one of these homogenous hootenanies! One Republican Roadshow in Oklahoma and we'd be covered for at least another year. And while we're at it, the military should set up booths at College Republican chapter meetings! Surely there are some military-aged Iraq war enthusiasts at these!

You see, mine is a very simple plan: if you truly believe in this war, fight it! I mean really go for it. Our professional troops are already paying a high price. We'll all be paying the financial part of it off for decades. So you see, now is not the time for buyer's remorse. If you still believe this war was about getting rid of weapons of mass destruction, making America safer, and fighting allies of bin Laden, you'd be silly not to sign up. Or if you've bought into the notion that Iraq, for some inexplicable reason really needed to jump to the head of the "embrace democracy" line even though several other countries were closer to the front, then you have every reason to buzz that gung-ho head of yours and hop that bus to boot camp.

Now that I've stated the obvious, your course of action should be pretty clear. If you support the war and are at all eligable and able to fight, stop making excuses and blaming everyone else but yourself for the increasing shortage of troops. Get in there, you arm-chair hero, you! Don't be some disingenuous poser. Be all that you can be, unless when push comes to shove you really don't believe in this war after all.

So true. And then our red state might suddenly become a lovely shade of violet, which would make me a whole lot more comfortable. This gives me another idea, what if recruiters developed a strategic plan that heavily targeted the "reddist" of states? I believe this is called "niche marketing."

Troy,Thanks for your comments. My Uncle Jerry who is in his 60s and lived through WWII has been saying since the Iraq War started that we aren't making any sacrifices at home as we have done in previous wars and that is how he believes we can let this fiasco continue. He believes we should bring back the rationing we had in WWII and tin foil collecting and all the other things we did to make sacrifices for the war. Instead we shop in our overflowing groceries stores and department stores, drive around in our gas guzzling cars, and feel sorry for 2 minutes when we hear another 22 year old American has lost his life. Then we go back to watching our reality tv shows, sitting in our air conditioned monster homes and don't feel any effects of our administration lying to us.On another note, in the Bush administration's ongoing attempts to turn our country into Soviet Russia, I heard a report on NPR this morning about the Board Chairman of the Voice of America politicizing the news and requesting his reporters emphasize the positive rather than the negative things going on in Iraq. HELP! Rosie

Your Uncle Jerry is right Rosie, and his views implicate people like me, too. I wonder why we aren't paying for more of this war up front by saving for it(now there's a mid-20th century notion)through rations and resource drives? Anybody out there know how those WWII drives started--State Department? Dept. of Defense? Could you ask your Uncle Jerry?